I want an ebook to do this…
Thoughts on ebooks please feel free to add your thoughts to the comments.
1) Print books and magazines are designed as lineal creations. You read from the beginning to the end, page 1 through page 200. Yes, you can browse either by opening a book/magazine at any spot but the design, the thinking and concept is a linear one.
2) Current ebooks mimic this design thinking. Ebooks are usually a pdf or similar format with a linear concept a beginning and an end.
3) This is inadequate and the modern publishing only mimics the old model. Were force feeding an old way of thinking and formatting into a new distribution technology. (An expected development but its time to move on. E-formatting need not be linear.)
4) I want full interactivity in my ebooks with text, images, video all working together to act as my personal e-information source. (Note that fiction writers have their own issues this post focuses on non-fiction)
5) Information navigation systems resemble spider webs more than straight lines. I want a circular flow rather than a linear flow.
6) I want a subscription model for updating. This can either be a magazine format on a yearly basis or a longer-term updating. And yes, theres a cost to this new technology.
7) I want all of my e-documents to be connected in this visual spiders web my library exists in a handheld device. Not in a linear or serial fashion but interconnected and related to my life.
8 ) This library contains and retains e-magazines, e-books, individual information, journals of research. Everything I want to read or make notes about is in my library. Naturally I can search through all of it by voice and add to it from bar-code scanning or voice or images.
9) It has to work across all software platforms. I hate it when you get data or information onto one software system locking you to that software rather than being able to use it across different platforms it has to work on Windows, Mac and Linux computers as well as the major hand-held devices (OS and Android)
So heres the thing. Im messing about with some options right now. Its early days and Im in the thinking stages of this but I do think non-linear thinking and content-creation/storage is the future of publishing.
Tell me what you think you want your e-books to do what? What are those important characteristics that youd want to see and use?
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